On September 28, 1861, local men sympathetic to the Confederacy gathered in this field to form the Williamson County Cavalry (Co. F, 4th Tennessee Cavalry). The local newspaper pronounced the company composed of "about 100 of the finest looking men we ever saw."

This scene was repeated across the country, North and South, as the war's initial excitement generated a rush of volunteers. Numbers soon reached into the hundreds of thousands, eventually producing the two largest armies in the world at the time. By war's end, nearly one million had served in the Confederate armed forces and two million for the Union. Most were volunteers.

Almost all recruiting occurred at the state and local levels. The vast majority of white men of military age in Williamson County enlisted, filling all or part of twelve Confederate infantry companies, six cavalry companies, and one artillery company. Of those companies, twelve fought in the Battle of Franklin, including the Williamson County Cavalry.

The county also produced Union volunteers, including many who enlisted in Co. H, 5th Tennessee Cavalry (US). Overall, Tennessee lived up to its nickname- the Volunteer State - by enlisting 120,000 men for the Confederacy and more than 31,000 for the Union. Approximately one out of seven Confederate soldiers came
from Tennessee, which also produced more Union soldiers than all of the Deep South states combined.

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